


what little we know about love, stole from rock'n'roll

by sternenrotz



Series: broken hearts hurt but they make us strong (queer horror verse) [4]
Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: Asexuality, Gen, General douchebaggery, Grocery Shopping, Nail Polish, Nonbinary Character, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:23:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh and Faris act obtuse and Josh shoplifts a bottle of nail varnish from Tesco.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what little we know about love, stole from rock'n'roll

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "Drive" by the Matches.
> 
> set in 2008, during the recording of _Primary Colours_. Faris is ace and still identifying as a cis man, don't ask Josh about eir gender, and the two of them are (?) hatemates. also, Rhys is a trans girl and her chosen name is Dilys, but she doesn't show up much. once again, content warning for to-be-expected ignorance, geared towards aces this time around.

“So, like… Is it going to be weird now?”

“Is what going to be weird now?” Faris asks back.

There’s a Tesco down the road from the studio, and they’ve been standing in the frozen food section for at least ten minutes.

“Do you think Dilys would rather have the mushroom kind or the tuna kind?”

From behind him, Josh makes a derisive noise and says, “Di’s going to murder you if you bring back cheap seafood and expect her to eat it. And I think Joe’s trying to do clean eating post surgery so he won’t want meat on his.”

Faris is pretty sure ey’s pulling a derisive face to go along with it, but he’s not going to turn around to check. Actually, he’s not going to remove himself from the freezer for another twenty minutes if he can help it.

“Joe’s a wanker.”

Josh doesn’t disagree. Ey says, “Right, we’re taking one of the ones with mushrooms for Joe and Di, and a four season one ‘cause that’s the only one Tom takes. And one of the ones with pepperoni.”

“Fine,” Faris rumbles. Even he has to admit that’s exactly what his voice sounds like.

He collects the pizzas and makes a point of doing it as slowly as possible, and he pulls his head out from the freezer however reluctantly. Faris hates the heat wave. This Tesco has air conditioning, but it’s shitty, or maybe the heat from outside is just that overwhelming.

“Anything else we need?” he asks when he goes to put the pizzas into their basket. “Baked beans, noodles, toast, fruit, dinner.”

“Yeah.”

Josh’s not wearing a binder today, and it’s cold enough in the frozen food section to make it obvious ey’s not wearing anything else underneath eir shirt, either.

“So we’re not going to talk about it.”

“I’ve got genuinely no idea what you mean by _it_.”

Josh picks up pace to head towards the front of the shop now where the doors are open, because apparently ey doesn’t care for Faris’ delicate sense of temperature. Faris hates em, too. Hates em hates em hates em hates em. Maybe that’s the best way to get used to the new pronoun, if he just keeps repeating that to himself.

“And I’m definitely not going to discuss it out in the frozen foods section of bloody Tesco’s.”

“But you’re more than willing to stare at my tits in the frozen foods section of bloody Tesco’s,” Josh shoots back. “Just pointing it out.”

“I didn’t,” Faris says and scratches at his thigh through his jeans, for lack of anything else to fidget with. “I wasn’t _staring_ at them, just. Had a glance. Less than a second.”

“You know one second’s like five seconds in titty time.”

Josh stops walking. They’re in the makeup section, somehow, because Josh always _somehow_ manages to get Faris into places where he didn’t intend to go normally. Which sounds like it should be a metaphor, but it really isn’t this time.

“Hold up.”

“I’m holding up.”

Josh whips eir head around to check for security cameras.

“Very smooth.”

“Piss off.”

Next thing, ey’s snatched a bottle of black nail varnish from the shelf and stuffed it into eir pocket. Which, Faris has to admit, is a pretty smooth move indeed.

“You’re such a teenager,” he says when they walk up to the register and Josh grabs a chocolate bar off the shelf to drop it into their basket.

“Well.” Josh starts putting the pizzas onto the conveyor belt and says, “I know what you are, but we’re in public right now.”

So. Faris supposes that whatever Josh wants to talk about is actually pretty serious, because ey’s not normally above using the word “cunt” in the middle of a supermarket.

They pay and leave the shop, with the bottle of nail varnish in Josh’s pocket still. No, Josh doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact that Faris’ heart is up in his throat with anxiety when they exit. Not that he’s not used to Josh shoplifting candy and makeup, but he’s still vaguely worried ey’ll get caught sooner or later. A twenty-three-year-old grown-up shoplifter. Imagine the embarrassment.

“D’you want to get the bus?”

“Nah,” Josh says. “It’s only ten minutes, we can just walk.”

Faris hates, hates, hates, hates, hates em. Special emphasis on the _hate_ this time around.

They’re halfway up the road, and Faris has sweat sticking to his forehead and underarms and legs in his skinny trousers again.

That’s when he says, “Kind of weird that you of all people seems to not care about the heat wave at all, considering your boobs probably weigh about ten pounds each.”

Josh snorts audibly and pulls at eir shirt, Faris can see from the corner of his eye. He’s not going to turn around if it means he’ll get yelled at for staring again.

“Yeah. It’s also kind of weird that you’re so affected by it considering you’re… You know.”

“Brown?” Faris has _definitely_ never heard that one before. “You know I’m also a sociophobe hermit, right.”

“Asexual sociophobe hermit,” Josh adds.

Ey pauses to light a fag. Faris technically has some comment lined up for that one, but he’s not that bothered, in all honesty. Less bothered than he is by those stupid origami birds, at least, and he’s starting to lose the urge to smoke one every two hours by now.

“So.” Josh picks the bag of groceries back up, fag still caught between eir fingers, and asks, “Are we actually not going to talk about it, then?”

“I’ve still got no idea what you’re talking about.” Honestly. Faris always thought _he_ was bad at the whole communication thing.

“I‘m talking about how stupidly obtuse you are.”

“As if you aren’t the obtuse one of us two,” Faris says. He scratches his thigh again, and he says, “First of all, we’re going to get these groceries back to the studio. Then we’ll talk.”

“Patronising.”

“Obnoxious,” Faris says back. “If we’re going to describe each other’s behaviour in one word.”

They walk on in silence, and it’s different. Different from their typical exchange of insults, because neither of them is laughing this time, and the air between them crackles with… whatever air tends to crackle with. Tension, probably, and pent up aggression.

“D’you, like,” Josh starts when they’re almost at their studio. “D’you hate me now?”

Faris has only gotten that question from Josh once so far, and that was much too long ago and on a different topic. Once again, he’s not entirely sure why ey’s asking.

“Of course I don’t _hate_ you,” he says back.

Although he does at this second. If he didn’t, he probably would’ve jokingly said he did. That’s what their weird relationship is built on, isn’t it. Or it used to be. _Hatemates_ , Dilys called them once.

“I don’t hate you, either,” Josh says, and ey obviously bloody _does_.

Ey knocks the studio door with a balled-up fist several times before ey actually unlocks it. “Laaaaaaaadies!” Josh yells inside. “We’re back from the hunt!”

Underneath his breath, Faris mutters, “Twat.”

“Pizza serviiiiiiiiice!” Josh shouts as they actually walk in.

Faris really, really wants to kick eir shin. Not like ey wouldn’t deserve it.

Dilys comes bouncing into them when they’re walking along the the hallway, and next thing, she’s got her arms around Josh’s shoulders and her lips smacking kisses along eir cheeks. Today, Faris chalks it up to too much caffeine and LSD.

“Hey!” she exclaims, before, next thing, she’s attacking Faris instead.

Faris can’t really do much except let himself be held and have aggressive ‘mwah’-sound kisses planted on each of his cheeks. Dilys is really growing breasts now, a weird unwelcome reminder of that against his chest. She stopped wearing a bra pretty much as soon as she started to need one. As if Faris hasn’t been up close with enough breasts today already.

“You guys are just in time. I think if you’d taken any longer Joe would’ve collapsed on himself.”

She leans in to collect the grocery bags from their hands and leads the way over to their shoddy little studio kitchen, really just a glorified storage space with a fridge, microwave and kettle, and a dinner table.

“Are you guys coming along?”

“No, we’ll…” Faris starts.

Josh cuts him off without any real reason. “We’re having a moment right now. If you’d just excuse us.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Dilys smiles and winks, and that’s the last thing Faris needs right now. Sometimes her demeanour really makes his stomach churn, especially when he’s already got the anxiety choking round his throat _again_. He wills for it to stop, at least.

“We’ll just tell you when the pizzas are ready, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Josh turns over to look at Faris and says, “Come on, Bird.”

Faris can’t even remember the last time before today Josh called him that, but he only shrugs.

Josh leads them both over into the actual studio, the sofa squeezed between the equipment. It’s all empty, of course, since Tom and Joe are most likely in the kitchen already, but Faris doesn’t have time to lament that between when he goes to sit down and when Josh starts talking.

Ey says, “So.”

“So,” Faris says back, and he folds his legs and scratches an itch on his arm.

“Is it going to be weird now?” Josh repeats.

Faris lets out an overly long sigh. Maybe he exaggerates some of it, too, but he doesn’t stop until he feels like he’s been deflated.

“Josh.”

Josh huffs back a sigh and repeats, slower this time, as if _that_ of all things would be the reason why Faris didn’t understand em the first time, “Is it going to be weird now?”

The way ey keeps saying it, the exact same tone of voice with the exact same wording, Faris begins to suspect that it’s some sort of sleeper agent trigger phrase.

“I’ve still got no bloody idea what you’re talking about.”

Josh huffs a second time and lies back into the couch.

“You’re acting like a bloody child,” Faris starts to say, only for him to be cut off.

Josh says, “I’m talking about how, a month ago, we had sex in your flat, after we went out to get dinner, and then I spent the night and we did it again after breakfast, and then you go and tell everyone you’re asexual.”

Okay.

Faris prides himself in having come to terms with the fact that he’s never got any idea what the fuck Josh is going to do next, because frankly, he’s not Josh’s brand of insane. And yet, this is so completely out of left field, he’s shocked. Real, genuine, completely-unexpected-turn-of-events shocked.

So shocked, in fact, that the first thing he replies is, “We just got Indian takeaways and ate them in the park.” Because _that’s_ the most objectionable part about what Josh’s just said.

“You know you could have just told me personally if you want to break up with me.”

“What?”

“You could’ve just said so and it would’ve been less insulting than that.”

“Josh.” For once, Faris has to make a point to _not_ put any inflection in his voice when he says it. He says, “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

And he scratches his thigh under Josh’s glare. Ey’s staring at him with a pout like a disgruntled child on eir face. Faris would laugh, if the situation was in any way funny.

“Not sure how I was supposed to break up with you when we weren’t even in a relationship in the first place.” At least, he thinks that.

“You think?”

“I thought we weren’t. I thought we were always just friends.”

“Well, we were hatemates. And we had sex.”

Josh brings up one hand to eir mouth and chews eir fingernail, what Faris _knows_ ey does when ey wants to smoke but can’t. He hates the fact that he knows this.

“That’s a relationship, isn’t it?”

Faris exhales and, instead of doing the obvious and going for the scratch again, he picks at the thread where he’s got the hole on his knee and it’s worn frayed. “Maybe it is.” He picks at that thread again, and he says, “I didn’t mean to, you know… Break up with you.”

“You kinda did, though, you know.” Josh chews eir nails some more, and ey says, “I don’t expect you to understand this, but it’s kind of a huge blow to your ego if you spend almost three years having sex with a person and then they tell you that they’re not into it and they never got turned on by your body and they never want to do it again.”

Ey pauses for a second, and Faris doesn’t say anything, not just yet.

“That actually really hurts.”

“You know it’s not just about you, right? It’s about Dilys and Joe and Tom, too.”

Josh laughs and it’s the exact opposite of eir normal laugh, dry and short and scornful. “Obtuse,” ey says, overly dragging it out. “I can’t _believe_ how obtuse you are sometimes.”

“Like you’re not?” Faris interjects, but Josh seems to ignore him.

“You know it was never about Joe and Dilys to begin with ‘cause you’ve fucked each of them maybe twice, and it’s not like either of them actually care. I mean, they’re probably going to get married and run off to Brighton Beach and adopt five children and a cat within the next year.”

Faris laughs. He completely doesn’t mean to do it, but he laughs.

“Not like Tom cares ‘cause you probably only ever fucked ‘cause you were mates and there was no one else around. And also, I know that Tom cares about getting me into bed more than about anyone else.”

The whole time when ey speaks, Josh just keeps _staring_ at Faris’ face where he’s turned away from em. Faris hates, hates, hates eye contact, so he doesn’t turn to glare back. Still, it’s not like he can ignore how it makes his skin prickle under his collar.

“So don’t act like I’m not the main person who this is about.”

“I’m not sure what I should say to that.”

“I mean, I trusted you.”

“What d’you mean?”

Faris is sure that at this point, this conversation isn’t going to go anywhere. Just loops and loops and loops of him asking what Josh _means_ , until it’s so frustrating that one of them snaps or the other one breaks down crying. At this rate, he’s not sure which of them’s going to be which.

“Like, I trusted you enough to tell you about all the shit that’s happened to me.” Josh sounds a little bit worse-for-wear when ey says it, but Faris doesn’t trust himself to check for tears in eir eyes.

“Josh?”

“I’m not bloody crying.” Ey sniffles and says, “sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for if you weren’t crying.”

“It’s just you’re basically saying you don’t want my trust, you know, ‘cause I literally only told you that so we could have sex without it being weird.” Ey pauses for a split second, as if to reconsider whether that was a weird way of putting it.

Faris thinks it is, at least.

“And I get that you’re not choosing it, and I guess I’m the one who’s made it weird, too.”

Faris doesn’t know what to say again. He turns to properly face Josh, eir eyes still rimmed with a little red and smudgy eyeliner, and he wants to kiss em. To say sorry for nothing, or for whatever Josh is accusing him of. One of those.

“It’s okay.” He places his hand on the back of the sofa, closer to where Josh’s sitting, and he says, “I don’t think you’re the only one who made it weird. I mean, I’m the one who came out in the first place.”

“Yeah.” Josh pulls eir face into a teary-eyed grin, showing off those tiny fangs, and snorts. “It’s just like… I guess with me you saw it coming.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I’m just saying. ‘Cause you would’ve never caught Joe or any other trans guy I’ve met in tits-out necklines and push up bras, or tending bar to a bunch of lesbians with their tits out in a push up bra.”

Ey laughs, and Faris laughs along. Well, he tries, at least.

“I mean, I mainly did it so I’d get tips, but still… No one was really surprised that I ended up being,” Josh says and stops.

“Genderqueer?” Faris fills in.

“No. A scientist.”

“Right.”

“But with you, I always thought you really liked sex. ‘Cause you were good at it, you know.”

Josh chokes out another forced giggle. This time, Faris can’t bring himself to go along with it.

“And we did it all the time so I thought you were at least somewhat into it, you know?”

“Yeah.” Faris coughs. He _hates_ conversations, especially this one. “When me and Tom first moved here, he wanted to go out every night and every time I either left early or made up some excuse so I could stay back at the flat,” he says, and he’s not sure if there’s any reason to other than to prove Josh wrong. “This one time we were at a pub, and I lost track of time and of him, so I came home, and he was fucking a bird in our bedroom.” Faris clears his throat and takes the time to gauge Josh’s wide-eyed expression. “I didn’t have anywhere to go that night so I fell asleep in the stairwell outside our flat, ‘cause I really didn’t want to hear them doing it. Like, she was fit, I just thought it was really gross.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. I never really got behind the whole concept of pulling ‘cause I never looked at anyone, ever, and had my first thought be, _I’d like to have sex with them_.”

“Why’d you still do it?” Josh asks. “If you never thought about sex. Just curious.”

“‘cause I had to, I guess. It’s what I was supposed to do, and the actual sex felt good, so obviously I had to like it.”

“You liked it,” Josh repeats.

Faris can’t tell from the way ey says it whether it’s meant to be a question or not. “Like I said. Obviously having my junk touched felt good, but that’s just nerve endings.” His skin itches at his forearms, the anxiety irritating the nerves underneath again, and Faris goes to scratch it. “I’d just rather never do it again ‘cause it’s kind of weird and uncomfortable for me.”

“What’s it like for you?”

“What’s it like for _you_?” Faris reflexively asks back, before he says, “It’s like going down to the supermarket. It’s not actually painful or gross, just kind of boring and you have to do it once a week.”

Josh cackles, the most unpleasant shrieky cackle ey’s got. It’s just what Faris needs to hear at that second, and he laughs along, although it doesn’t really get rid of the heaviness in his throat.

A silence settles between them when Josh stops laughing, finally. Faris didn’t even think it was that funny. This time around, it’s the comfortable type of silence, though, or at least the kind that only makes Faris’ skin prickle a little as opposed to before. He sinks down deeper into the sofa and once again wishes he had something to fidget with. Instead, he just scratches his thighs some more.

When it’s been a bit, Faris starts to wonder if he should maybe _say_ something, just to make sure they’ve really talked it all out.

Josh asks, “Bird?”

“Yeah?” Faris turns his head, only to find em fumbling with one hand in the pocket of eir tight jeans.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” Faris supposes he is okay.  He watches as Josh finally pulls out the bottle of nail varnish he’d almost forgotten about by now.

“D’you mind if I paint my nails right here?”

“Nah, it’s… Go ahead.”

Josh’s got steady engineer hands, painting eir nails with surprisingly neat, slow strokes, and Faris watches em for a lack of anything better to do. He left his sketchbook on the kitchen table, and even if they’re technically not _interacting_ , he still feels it’d be rude to walk out on Josh right now.

“You know it’s not supposed to feel like grocery shopping, right?” Josh eventually says when ey’s mostly done with the left hand.

“I know it’s supposed to be thrilling or romantic or whatever you’re about to say. It just isn’t.”

Josh makes a noise, and maybe ey realises that previous comment was kind of insensitive, because ey adds, “Sorry.”

Ey pulls back, spreads eir fingers out and pulls them taut, as if to survey eir work.

“You should make some rules. For what’s off limit and what isn’t.” Josh delicately-delicately tests if the polish on eir nails has dried yet, which it apparently has. “Rules are good.”

“Yeah,” Faris says. “Rule number one: don’t tell me what to do with my own junk or anyone else’s.”

“I like that one,” Josh says and picks the tiny brush up with eir freshly painted nails. “So what’s rule number two?”

“There’s no rule number two. There’s only one rule.”

“That’s pragmatic.”

Josh chews eir lip, that bit more focused now that ey’s painting with the other hand. Ey trembles, but manages to fill the nail on eir pointer finger in neatly.

“Say… Kissing. Is that still complying with the rules?”

“Kissing’s good. I guess so.”

“Good.” Josh raises eir head to give Faris a proper smile, and ey says, “Just gonna wait until my nails are done.”

“Okay.”

Maybe he should say more than that, considering he wanted to kiss Josh earlier, but he can’t think of anything. Faris straightens himself up on the sofa to nudge closer, and also, to be able to watch Josh properly while ey finishes painting eir nails. Ey holds eir fingers out again, both hands this time.

“You’re actually such a girl, you know.” Faris can’t keep himself from the quip.

Josh wrinkles eir nose. “Not today, I’m not.”

Then they’re kissing, like Josh said, noses knocking into each other gently. It’s slow and warm, no tongue, the same way Josh’s body is radiating warm around em. Faris lets himself sink back into the couch and doesn’t even mean to.

They pull apart, and Josh asks, “What do you say we do your nails next?”

“Yeah.” Faris laughs, just for a short moment. “If you want to. You can.”

“Okay.” Josh tests the drying varnish on the left hand with eir fingertip again. “Gonna be another half a minute or so.” Then ey says, even though Faris wouldn’t have questioned it, “Sixty second dry polish.”

So before Faris can say anything in response to _that_ , they’re kissing again.

Maybe it’s because Faris is ticklish, or that he’s not used to having something sticky on his fingernails. But either way, it’s enough for him to keep on flinching and enough to take Josh that much longer this time around. Ey’s on the second to last one when Dilys comes in, or, well, when she knocks on the doorframe and pops her head in.

“Are you guys still having a moment?”

Josh says back, “We’re still having a moment.”

“Yeah,” Faris says, and he spreads his fingers the same way Josh had done it earlier.

“‘cause I just wanted to say that the first two pizzas are ready and I can’t guarantee for anything if you don’t come and get yours now, so I should probably…”

Dilys stops short at that point, and then she asks, “Are you doing each other’s nails?”

“Yeah,” Josh says, at the same time that Faris says, “Not really.”

Faris says, “Josh’s doing nails.”

“Cool. So if I bring you some pizza, can you do mine next?”

By the time that the pizzas are gone, all five of them have their nails painted.


End file.
